Population and Housing

[jeffster]

As you know, some census information has been released; here are some highlights of this region.

Kitchener: 2021) 256,885 2016) 233,222 an increase of 10.1%
Waterloo:  2021) 121,436 2016) 104,986 an increase of 15.7%
Cambridge: 2021) 138,479 2016) 129,920 an increase of 6.6%

Metro for Kitchener is: 2021) 575,847 2016) 523,894 and increase of 9.9%

The above does not includes Wellesley. This sets the regional population at 586,466

The economic population (Kitchener-Guelph-Barrie) is: 2021) 1,427,617 2016) 1,299,250 an increase of 9.9%

The economic region is now the 3rd largest in Ontario, behind Toronto and Hamilton/Niagara. We're now ahead of the Ottawa region.

This is a very strange conglomeration, as far as I'm aware, we have few economic ties to Barrie, there are no direct transportation routes between the two areas, and no social connection that I'm aware of.

I can believe this is a stats can grouping of some type, but it makes little sense to me IMO, it is certainly not in any way comparable to Ottawa region which is a highly centralized and integrated area. And, further, if you include the metro area of Ottawa (which includes parts of Quebec) which is more representative of the population of economic region, we are also still smaller.

A lot of Census information doesn't make sense.

Take London for example, it's "metro" population includes places far outside the city, and also outside the region/county. Same applies with Hamilton (includes Burlington) and Toronto, of course.

Take this area, the metro population doesn't even count all of the region, let alone anything outside the region (and most fair comparison is London -- which, as I had mentioned, includes population base far outside the city and region).

As for the economic region, I have no idea how they came up with it. It would make sense if it was Kitchener-Guelph-Brantford-Stratford, for example. But I guess this is the way the government wants it split up.